Category: Germany

Whilst in Bavaria, as well as visiting all of King Ludwig II’s castles and palaces, I also wanted to fit in a couple of royal residences in Munich, particularly Schloss Nymphenburg which was King Ludwig I’s palace.  He was King Ludwig II’s grandfather and I’d read about his palace, Nymphenburg.  And it was only a 10 minute walk from my hotel in Munich.

It was a lovely warm day and after a short wander through the gardens, I bought my ticket for the palace to have a look around the interior. The Queen’s bedchamber was the birthplace of King Ludwig II, so there was still a connection to Mad King Ludwig at this palace.

The Great Hall at the start of the tour is the most impressive of the rooms, the other rooms aren’t particularly special, they seemed to be fairly standard as far as rooms in royal palaces go.

However, I was particularly interested in seeing the Gallery of Beauties that I’d read about. King Ludwig I, who liked the ladies, had paintings commissioned of 36 women he considered beautiful and hung them in this gallery in his palace. His gallery was unusual because he didn’t just commission paintings of princesses and noble women, any woman he considered beautiful was painted.

Amongst the portraits was that of Lola Montez, the king’s mistress, who ended up being his downfall.  Lola Montez had reinvented herself as a Spanish dancer, but in fact she was born Eliza Gilbert in Ireland.  She had travelled to Europe to seek her fame as an actress and dancer. She couldn’t act, or dance either for that matter, but what she did have going for her was her exotic looks.  She was considered a striking beauty and had a string of influential men as lovers, including Franz Liszt, and finally ended up as the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria until his relationship with her forced him to abdicate and Lola was run out of town.  Quite a story behind that portrait!

I enjoyed the tour of the palace and after that I had a walk around the grounds. The gardens were beautiful with fountains and bridges in both the formal front gardens and the grounds at the back of the palace. In May the flowers were out all, lots of orange and yellow ones at the back of the palace that coincidentally matched my clothes. I walked right through the gardens all the way to a bridge at the end than crossed over the stream with a distant view of the palace ahead.  I then made my way to the formal grounds at the front of the palace and stood on the balcony at the front of the palace which was lit by ornate lamp posts.

After my initial rush to Nymphenburg to make sure I saw it before it closed for the day, I then headed to the Hirschgarten, the largest beer garden in Europe, which was basically next door to my hotel. It was packed out because it was Mother’s Day.  In fact, on the plane, the Lufthansa flight attendant brought round a bottle of sparkling wine because it was Mother’s Day.

In the beer garden I had a couple of Hugo cocktails, which were a speciality of the area, a combination of prosecco, elderflower syrup and mint. I decided that cheese would be a nice accompaniment to my cocktail so I ordered some and ended up with a very weird concoction, a mixture of Brie, cream cheese and butter, which was bright orange accompanied by pretzels!  It probably contained my fat allowance for the next 5 years and would no doubt send my cholesterol levels through the roof!

As it was my first day in Munich and had been an early morning I decided to leave it at that for today and continue my exploration of Munich at a later date.

Four days later, having seen all of King Ludwig II’s fantastical castles and palaces, I spent my day in the city of Munich.

First of all, I charged to the top of St Peter’s church tower because that’s what I do.  I’ve got a thing about climbing church or cathedral towers anywhere I go and I also have a thing about using the steps, even if there’s a lift. So I charged up the tower using the staircase. Once at the top of the tower I had a view overlooking Marienplatz, Munich’s main central square.

When I descended to ground level and started to look around, I then noticed that all the shops were shut and discovered that today was Ascension Day and it was celebrated here as a public holiday because Bavaria is still predominantly Catholic, so religious holidays are generally observed.

Fortunately the Munich Residence was open so I went in there.  The Munich Residence had been the city palace of the Wittelsbach dynasty, the Bavarian royal family.  It was the seat of government for Bavarian during the monarchy and the largest city palace in Germany and was now open to the public.

I went in the Treasury first which contained the oldest known English crown which was for a queen.  It was interesting to think how it had ended up in Munich as it was an English crown.  The curators couldn’t be certain, but there was a theory that it had been part of a dowry.  There was also a king’s crown and it was so big it looked like it would fit round my waist!

My favourite piece in the Treasury was a beautiful statuette of St George on his horse killing the dragon made of hundreds of precious stones.

I was also fascinated by a travelling case for a queen which contained toiletries, a teapot, a sewing kit, a set of cutlery, a screwdriver and a drill!  I wondered what she would have used a drill for on her travels…

After that I went round the 900 rooms of the Munich Residence. No, it was only 90 rooms. It just felt like 900.  The audioguide actually said unfortunately not all of the rooms were open for viewing, only 96 were open!  96 was more than enough!  I was flagging at the end of that. None of the rooms were as impressive as at Mad King Ludwig’s palaces.

To be fair, a lot of the Munich Residence had been damaged in the Second World War, but it did make me appreciate the genius of King Ludwig II. The more I heard about him, the more I liked him. In the end all of the rooms started to look the same and the audio guide no longer held my interest.

Finally I spent 20 minutes in the Cuvilliés Theatre which is attached to the Munich Residence, but I had had enough of the Munich Residence by now.  The only way it would have held my attention would have been if I’d been there to watch a ballet or an opera. I have to say I preferred being in the mountains and countryside to being in the city.

On leaving the Munich Residence I made my way to the English Garden to have a walk round.  The English Garden was busy, probably because it was a Bank holiday. It was a nice place for a wander and I also saw the river surfers on the Eisbach, an artificial stream running by the edge of the park.  It’s a dangerous pastime and for experienced local surfers only, due to the rocks set into the concrete and the shallow water.  It looked terrifying to me!

Afterwards I went for an ice cream and then into a beer cellar, but because it was Ascension Day and a public holiday it was really crowded.  It wasn’t my kind of thing at all.  I’m not really a beer drinker and I hate crowds.  So going into a crowded beer cellar on a Bank Holiday was probably not the best idea I’d ever had…

I was happy to stick with castles and palaces and the undisputed genius of Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

I would thoroughly recommend Schloss Nymphenburg, the Treasury and the Munich Residence in Munich city centre.  But be selective in the Munich Residence.  Don’t try and see all 96 plus rooms that are open unless you want to end up in a trance by the end of it like I did!

I travelled in Bavaria during the second week of May in 2015.

Unlike the palaces and castles of King Ludwig II, photography is permitted inside Schloss Nymphenburg, the Munich Residence, the Treasury and the Cuvilliés Theatre.  If you want to see more, click on the below links to the official websites. General information, including admission prices, can be found on these websites.

I bought a 14 day pass which was valid for a large number of castles and palaces throughout Bavaria and cost 24 Euros. This leaflet details all attractions covered by the 14 day pass which includes Schloss Nymphenburg, the Munich Treasury, the Munich Residence and the Cuvilliés Theatre.

In 2018 tickets for Schloss Nymphenburg cost 6.00 Euros per person. There are no guided tours of the palace, but an audioguide is available for 3.50 Euros per person.

In 2018 tickets for Munich Residence cost 7.00 Euros per person and include a free audio guide. Tickets for the Treasury cost 7.00 Euros per person and include a free audio guide. Tickets for the Cuvilliés Theatre cost 3.50 Euros per person.

Combination tickets for the Munich Residence and Treasury cost 11.00 Euros per person and combination tickets for the Residence, Treasury and Theatre cost 13.00 Euros per person.

I stayed at Hotel Kriemhild close to the Hirschgarten in Munich and a 10 minute walk from Schloss Nymphenburg.

I flew to Munich direct from Birmingham Airport with Lufthansa

Read the three instalments about my tours of King Ludwig II’s fantasy castles and palaces.
Neuschwanstein Castle
Linderhof Palace
Palace of Herrenchiemsee

Read about my other adventures on my trip to Bavaria and Austria.
Paragliding in the Bavarian Alps
Surreal Night at the Rattlesnake Saloon
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa

I love visiting castles and palaces. Read about other castles I’ve visited around the world.
Kronborg – A Visit to Hamlet’s Castle

On my final day of visiting King Ludwig II’s fantastical castles and palaces, today it was the turn of Herrenchiemsee Palace.

Herrenchiemsee Palace is on an island in a lake. King Ludwig II craved isolation to live in his fantasy world and building a palace on an island was an ideal solution for achieving solitude. He even made sure that the palace was built where it was not visible from the lake for an added measure of privacy.

I spent the day on Chiemsee, the largest lake in Bavaria, known as the Sea of Bavaria. To start with I got the boat from Prien am Chiemsee over to Herren Insel and headed straight to Herrenchiemsee.

Herrenchiemsee was King Ludwig II’s most extravagant and ambitious building project. He wanted it to be a copy of Versailles, as he greatly admired King Louis XIV of France, but King Ludwig wanted his palace to be bigger than Versailles. It is bigger than Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors is longer than the one at Versailles. But it was never finished.

When you go into the North Staircase of the palace it’s richly decorated, but the decoration of the South Staircase which was supposed to match its counterpart was never begun and is exposed bare brick. Even so, with very little completed, the money King Ludwig spent on the building you see today amounted to around a staggering £150 million in today’s money. After the death of King Ludwig II, part of the palace was demolished.

I did a tour of the palace and it was an excellent tour. The more I saw of the handiwork of Mad King Ludwig, the more I liked him. Every room just surprises and amazes. The bedrooms were extravagant and ridiculous, but strangely wonderful too. The Hall of Mirrors was a staggering spectacle and the dining room had a magic table that lowered through the floor like in Linderhof, so that the king could dine alone and enjoy his fantasies.

As for the bathroom, the bath took 8 hours to fill and heat, it was so deep, even at 6 feet 4, King Ludwig wouldn’t have kept his head above the water. It was more a swimming pool than a bath really. But a bath that size, that’s my kind of bathroom! This palace was absolutely huge and it was fantastic.

Sadly King Ludwig II only spent 9 nights in his wondrous palace. He actually spent more time in the Old Palace, where he stayed when overseeing the construction of Herrenchiemsee, than in his new palace.

After looking around Herrenchiemsee Palace, I went in the museum which had portraits of King Ludwig II and plans for his castles. The detail was incredible. There were designs for a soap dish and a gondola shaped cutlery holder! At first I thought it was a bit extreme, but after visiting the Munich Residence the following day, I realised you do need that kind of detail. I was very impressed.

Then I had a walk around the grounds of Herrenchiemsee and the thing that strikes you most about the gardens are the fountains which are incredible. The main fountain is a copy of one at Versailles and represents the story of Latona, mother of Apollo, and has frogs and turtles spouting water. The Fortuna fountain features the goddess on the wheel of fortune surrounded by cherubs riding dolphins. The Fama fountain has men falling to their death off the top of the fountain, representing Fama’s victory over evil. These were all sculpted in stone, not real, you understand. Everything that King Ludwig II designed was extravagant and over the top.

I went in the Augustinian Monastery known as the Old Palace where King Ludwig II had a couple of rooms where he stayed when he came over to Herren Insel to check on the progress of the building of Herrenchiemsee. I had a look around to see where King Ludwig had slept, in order to complete what had turned into a bit of a pilgrimage to Mad King Ludwig.  The Old Palace is only small and doesn’t take long to look around, but it’s certainly worth a stop if you have the time.

The Hall of Planes in front of the Old Palace with its view of Frauen Insel was planted in 1893 and the trees along this avenue were really beautiful.

After that I went over to Frauen Insel, the second largest of the three islands on Chiemsee. I walked right around the island, which you can do in about half an hour. Frauen Insel has around 300 permanent residents, many of whom are artists who sell their products in craft shops located around the perimeter path. Consequently it took me longer than 30 minutes to walk the island’s circuit because I spent time mooching in the craft shops and ended up with a wonderful metal frog from Frauen Insel who lives in my kitchen.

Frauen Insel is also home to a working 8th century Benedictine convent. I had a look inside the convent church. Frauen Insel is the home to Germany’s only island Christmas Market and the island is all lit up with candles and is beautifully decorated at Christmas, the nuns decorate the island and apparently it’s quite something to see. The Christmas market is another good reason for me to return to Bavaria.

During this trip to Bavaria, the only thing I did miss in my pilgrimage to King Ludwig II was Lake Starnberg where King Ludwig had died. However, after witnessing all his wonderful creations I’d seen on this trip by visiting his visionary castles and palaces, demonstrating the wonderful imagination of this eccentric king, I think seeing the lake where he died would have been rather a sad conclusion to my tour and only succeeded in ending things on a low note. Maybe I would go there on another visit to Bavaria.

For this trip I thought it far better to leave rejoicing in the fantastical palaces and fairytale castles which were the lasting legacy of this sensitive, dreamy king than go the place where he met his tragic demise. He had left some wonderful buildings behind for the world to enjoy and I had thoroughly enjoyed them all and that was what I wanted to remember about the amazing King Ludwig II from this holiday.

I travelled in Bavaria during the second week of May in 2015.

As with the other palaces and castles of King Ludwig II, no photographs can be taken inside Herrenchiemsee, but the official website is excellent, with beautiful photos of the interior of each room in the virtual tour.

General information, including admission prices, can be found on the official palace website.

I bought a 14 day pass which was valid for a large number of castles and palaces throughout Bavaria and cost 24 Euros. This leaflet details all attractions covered by the 14 day pass.

You can only visit Herrenchiemsee as part of a guided tour.
In 2018 tickets for a guided tour of Herrenchiemsee cost 11.00 Euros per person and include admission to the King Ludwig II museum and the Augustinian Monastery as well as to the special art exhibition Königsklasse until 3 October.

From 4 October through until May, the Königsklasse special exhibition is closed. During this time, the ticket price is reduced to 9.00 Euros per person and includes a guided tour of the palace of Herrenchiemsee, admission to the King Ludwig II museum and Augustinian Monastery.

Combination tickets for entry to Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee cost 26 Euros per person.

Herrenchiemsee is located on Herren Insel on Chiemsee Lake.  The island can be accessed by boat from Prien am Chiemsee.  Prien am Chiemsee is 88km from Munich which is an approximate one and a quarter hour drive from the city.

Boats from Prien am Chiemsee to Herren Insel run regularly from approximately 7am to 7pm. Boats also stop at Frauen Insel.  Return tickets from Prien am Chiemsee which include a stop on Herren Insel and Frauen Insel cost 9.40 Euros per person.  Details of ticket prices and timetables can be found on the Chiemsee ferry website.

I stayed at Hotel Kriemhild close to the Hirschgarten in Munich.

I flew to Munich direct from Birmingham Airport with Lufthansa

Read further instalments about my tours of King Ludwig II’s fantasy castles and palaces.
Neuschwanstein Castle
Linderhof Palace

I also visited the Bavarian palaces in Munich.
Schloss Nymphenburg and the Munich Residenz

Read about my other adventures on my trip to Bavaria and Austria.
Paragliding in the Bavarian Alps
Surreal Night at the Rattlesnake Saloon
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa

I love visiting castles and palaces. Read about other castles I’ve visited around the world.
Kronborg – A Visit to Hamlet’s Castle

On my holiday in Bavaria, I continued to tour King Ludwig II’s fantastical castles and palaces and today I was going to Linderhof.

I went to Linderhof Palace after my morning paragliding flight and I was still flying high from this amazing experience. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, so I was expecting to enjoy Linderhof Palace and its grounds and I wasn’t disappointed.

Linderhof was my favourite of King Ludwig II’s castles and palaces. It was really worth going inside Linderhof. In my opinion, the interior was much better than at Neuschwanstein, I thought Neuschwanstein was dark and gloomy inside, but Linderhof was bright and colourful.

The bedroom was just spectacular. Mad King Ludwig II had the bedroom decked out like the Palace of Versailles. The king’s bedroom in Versailles was a showpiece because people would come and watch him get up in the morning and go to bed at night, but he didn’t actually sleep in the bed.

King Ludwig had it right, it was the exact opposite situation for him with his bedroom at Linderhof to the one of King Louis XIV at Versailles.

King Ludwig II was a recluse and he certainly had no one come into his bedroom and watch him get up in a morning and go to bed at night. He tended to sleep during the day and be up at night anyway. However, when he did go to sleep, he actually slept in his impressive, colossal, blue bed. I was pleased to know he had slept in the bed, it would have been such a waste otherwise.

He was also so much of a recluse, he had a “Wishing Table” in his dining room which was lowered through the floor into the kitchen, his food was put on it and then it was lifted back up into the dining room so he didn’t have to see his servants. He seriously did not like anyone to interrupt the fantasy world he was living in. I can’t fault him there!

The final room in the palace was the Hall of Mirrors, again it was a relatively small room, but the walls were completely covered with mirrors and King Ludwig would tend to use the room at night when it would be lit with hundreds of candles, their flames all reflected off the countless mirrors. It must have been a spectacular sight.

All the rooms were different colours, mainly pastel shades or bright colours, nothing dark and gloomy in there. On the tour of Linderhof, you get to see all the rooms too with it being such a small palace, it’s much smaller than Neuschwanstein. It was the only one of his castles that was completed because King Ludwig designed a manageably sized palace, rather than an enormous castle.

Another great thing about Linderhof was there weren’t many people on the tour so it was much easier to see everything and hear the guide. Linderhof isn’t as well known as Neuschwanstein, subsequently less people visit. One thing you certainly shouldn’t miss when you go to Linderhof are the grounds. I was lucky to be there on a fine day, so I could explore the grounds extensively.

In front of the palace was a manicured formal garden and steps leading up to terraces with some amazing statues and fountains. I was particularly drawn to the horse fountain where water was spurting out of the horses’ nostrils! From the terraces you could appreciate the layout of the formal garden and see the palace. However, I preferred the grounds at the back of the palace with a plant covered tunnel to walk through and the Music Pavilion, a gazebo at the top of the hill with a view to Linderhof Palace and the Alps beyond.

The only thing I didn’t like about walking through the grounds was the number of slow worms on the path, I saw three, they all looked like baby snakes and all made me jump. It was a hot day, so they were out enjoying the sunshine the same as me, but I don’t like snakes, not even little ones. If I have to hurl myself off the top of a mountain, I’m practically fearless, a slow worm is on the footpath in front of me and I’m scared. What a wimp!

There were a few buildings around the grounds at Linderhof, most impressive was the grotto.

The Venus Grotto is an artificial dripstone cave and I was surprised just how big it was. It features a lake and a stage and a shell shaped gilt boat on the lake. I had read that King Ludwig liked to ride in his boat on the lake in his man made cave which was designed to look like a stage set from the opera, Tannhäuser while he listened to music from Richard Wagner operas. When I visited the boat was on the lake and I could see the beautiful stage at the back of the cave. Sadly I wasn’t allowed to ride in the shell shaped boat to get a closer look at the stage myself.

I walked right round the grounds and saw all the other buildings too, including the replica of Hunding’s Hut, a hunting lodge that was built in 1876, but burned down less than 10 years later. It was rebuilt and burned down a second time. The present Hunding’s Hut was reconstructed in 1990. It has a tree in the middle of it and represents a set from Valkyrie, part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In fact, using sets from Wagner operas to decorate the castle rooms and grounds was a recurring theme, not only at Linderhof, but in all of King Ludwig’s palaces as King Ludwig II was a huge fan of Richard Wagner and the Germanic legends his operas portrayed.

There were a couple of other small buildings in the grounds, the Moorish kiosk with its spectacular peacock throne and the Moroccan house with its beautiful chandelier. You could only go into the doorway of the buildings so it wasn’t easy to get photographs. Both of these buildings were built elsewhere, bought by King Ludwig and transported to Linderhof.

There were plenty of places to walk around the grounds, especially in the woods around by the hunting lodge and at the back of the palace up in the Music Pavilion.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Linderhof, both the palace and grounds. The palace was small and beautifully decorated and the grounds and the numerous buildings in them were impressive. I particularly enjoyed the hunting lodge even though it was a replica and I thought the cave was fantastic.

The view of the palace and Bavarian Alps from the gazebo was amazing and I adored King Ludwig’s bedroom modelled on Louis XIV’s bedroom at Versailles. And I loved the fact that he used it, rather than it simply being a showpiece.

Having said that, all of Linderhof was a showpiece. It was definitely the pick of King Ludwig II’s palaces.

I travelled in Bavaria during the second week of May in 2015.

As no photographs are allowed inside the palace at Linderhof, if you want to take a look at the interior, check out the official website with a virtual tour of the palace complete with photographs of each room.

General information, including admission prices, can be found on the official palace website.

Please note, according to the Linderhof Palace official website, the Venus Grotto is presently undergoing extensive restoration work which is not due to be completed until the end of 2022. During these restoration works the Venus Grotto will remain closed.

I bought a 14 day pass which was valid for a large number of castles and palaces throughout Bavaria and cost 24 Euros. This leaflet details all attractions covered by the 14 day pass.

You can only visit Linderhof as part of a guided tour.

In 2018 tickets for a guided tour of Linderhof cost 8.50 Euros per person and includes admission to the park buildings.

In Winter it is possible to visit Linderhof Palace only for 7.50 Euros per person.
In Summer you can visit the grounds and park buildings only for 5 Euros per person.

Combination tickets for entry to Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee cost 26 Euros per person.

Linderhof Palace is located 100km from Munich which is an approximate one and a half hour drive from the city.

I stayed at Hotel Kriemhild close to the Hirschgarten in Munich

I flew to Munich direct from Birmingham Airport with Lufthansa

Read further instalments about my tours of King Ludwig II’s fantasy castles and palaces.
Neuschwanstein Castle
Palace of Herrenchiemsee

I also visited the Bavarian palaces in Munich.
Schloss Nymphenburg and the Munich Residenz

Read about my other adventures on my trip to Bavaria and Austria.
Paragliding in the Bavarian Alps
Surreal Night at the Rattlesnake Saloon
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa

I love visiting castles and palaces. Read about other castles I’ve visited around the world.
Kronborg – A Visit to Hamlet’s Castle

On my holiday in Bavaria, I was keen to tour all of King Ludwig II’s fantastical castles and palaces.

King Ludwig II was never meant to be king of Bavaria. His older brother, Otto was supposed to be king. Otto was declared insane. As King Ludwig II was known as Mad King Ludwig, it does make you wonder what his brother was like!

The first day I went to Neuschwanstein. Neuschwanstein is in the Bavarian Alps and is the most famous of King Ludwig II’s castles. Most people have seen photographs of the castle perched on a cliff top with the mountains of the Bavarian Alps behind it. In my opinion, Neuschwanstein has the most picturesque setting of any castle in the world.

I had bought a 14 day pass which was valid for entry into most of the castles and palaces in the area and was much cheaper than buying individual tickets for each place.

You have to walk up the hill to get to the castle and I had fun avoiding the horses as people who can’t manage the walk up the hill have the option of a horse drawn carriage ride. I’m horribly allergic to horses, so in some places, avoiding them can be a challenge. There is also a minibus, but it wasn’t running that day. I would have walked anyway; I enjoy walking and like to get the exercise.

I had plenty of time before the guided tour, so I walked to the Marienbrücke, the bridge over the Pollat Gorge named after King Ludwig II’s mother, Queen Marie of Prussia, that everyone heads to for a fabulous view of the castle where everyone takes a photograph, including me! The walk was lovely. With more time I would have gone further up the mountain, but I didn’t want to attempt a steep trail and then have to rush coming down and possibly break my neck to get to the tour on time or alternatively miss the tour, especially as it was quite busy that day. So I went back to the bridge and enjoyed the view in the sunshine.

The guided tour around the castle was interesting, but because Neuschwanstein is very popular, they cram a lot of people onto the tour, so it’s crowded, which made it difficult to see the rooms very well and you inevitably have the people who bring along noisy children. Neuschwanstein seemed to be particularly bad for this; I was struggling to hear what the guide was saying because of both the large number of people in the group and various children making a racket in the background.

Neuschwanstein was never finished. King Ludwig II had ambitious plans, but even though he had a colossal royal fortune, he blew it all constructing his castles and palaces and amassed huge debts in the process. He didn’t complete one castle and then start another, he had them built simultaneously and only the smallest of his palaces, Linderhof, was completed.

Neuschwanstein was supposed to have had over 200 rooms, but in fact, less than 20 were finished because the money ran out.

I had watched a Dan Cruikshank documentary on BBC4 about the castles of King Ludwig II a couple of years before and remembered the throne room in Neuschwanstein from that. It’s an over the top room, with bright colours, a starry ceiling and a mosaic floor with pictorial representations of animals. The thing that is missing from the room is a throne. King Ludwig II died before the throne was made.

When I say he died, his death is shrouded in mystery, no one knows for sure what happened to him, whether he was murdered or committed suicide. It’s a mystery that has kept people wondering for decades. It’s something that probably no one will ever have the answer to. However, the mystery surrounding King Ludwig II and his suspicious death just add to the enduring fascination with this eccentric king who lived in a permanent dream world. King Ludwig himself proclaimed: “I want to remain an eternal mystery to myself and others”.

Many of the rooms in Neuschwanstein are decorated as an homage to the heroes portrayed in the operas of Richard Wagner, many of which feature heavily in the castle’s interior. King Ludwig II was a huge fan of Wagner operas, he particularly identified with Lohengrin, the Swan Knight.

In Neuschwanstein scenes from Lohengrin are found in the salon, scenes from Tannhäuser are depicted in the study and the bedroom features murals depicting scenes from Tristan and Isolde.

The Singers’ Hall, along with the Throne Room was one the most important rooms in the castle and one of King Ludwig’s favourite projects at Neuschwanstein. This is the largest room in the castle and is a monument to the Germanic knights and legends of Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Parzival, but it was never used for entertaining. King Ludwig II was a loner who didn’t like company, he preferred to enjoy his castle in solitude.

I loved Neuschwanstein, but I did find the interior a little dark and gloomy. I don’t think you should miss seeing inside Neuschwanstein, but it’s true what people say, it does look better from the outside than the inside. For me, this was the least impressive interior of the palaces I visited.

When I’d walked to the Marienbrücke before the tour I noticed a path back down to the town through the forest on my way there. I decided that was the way I was going back to town. So after my guided tour of the castle I walked 10 minutes uphill to go back downhill so I could take the forest path instead of the roadway. Forest walks are one of my holiday pleasures.

Very close to Neuschwanstein is the smaller castle of Hohenschwangau. I also did a guided tour around this castle, which was less interesting and much smaller, but still worth the visit. Since I was there I was going to complete the castles associated with King Ludwig II and this was the castle where he grew up. The castle was built by King Ludwig II’s father, Maximilian II, who certainly didn’t have the architectural flair of his son. It was nowhere near as impressive as any of King Ludwig II’s castles. But Maximilian probably didn’t spend the colossal amounts of money building his castle as King Ludwig did.

One place that I did make a point of going into when I was at Hohenschwangau, was the chapel by the castle. It was very plain inside, but all you needed to do was look out of the window and you could see the Bavarian Alps. Like the chapel on Lake Tekapo in New Zealand, no stained glass window required, the view is all that is needed.

By the time I’d been in both castles, it was too late to venture to another of King Ludwig’s palaces, so I went a few miles down the road and went on the cable car up the Tegelberg for more views of the Bavarian Alps.

As you’re going up in the cable car you can see Neuschwanstein and on a reasonably clear day like this, from the top you can see the Zugspitze in the distance, which is the highest mountain in Germany.

I saw some paragliders at the top of Tegelberg so watched them with interest as they took off, as it was my paragliding flight the next day, although I was going from a different location. I hoped my paraglide pilot was a bit more handy than the ones I saw taking off Tegelberg, it took some of them 3 attempts to get in the air! I did subsequently discover it is a difficult location to take off from.

It was the end of the day and I’d seen the most iconic of Mad King Ludwig II’s fantastical castles, his childhood home and the highest mountain in Germany. It had been a good day.

I travelled in Bavaria during the second week of May in 2015.

You cannot take photographs inside Neuschwanstein, the best way to see the interior is to take a virtual tour on the official website which features photographs of each room on the tour.

General information, including admission prices, can be found on the official castle website.

I bought a 14 day pass which was valid for a large number of castles and palaces throughout Bavaria and cost 24 Euros. This leaflet details all attractions covered by the 14 day pass. Hohenschwangau is the only palace I visited that is not covered in this pass.

You can only visit Neuschwanstein as part of a guided tour. In 2018 tickets for a guided tour of Neuschwanstein cost 13 Euros per person.

Combination tickets for entry to Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee cost 26 Euros per person.

A combination ticket for Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau costs 25 Euros per person.

Neuschwanstein Castle is located 120km from Munich which is an approximate 2 hour drive from the city.

Hohenschwangau Castle is located a short walk from Neuschwanstein Castle. It is possible to visit both castles in the same day. Entry with a guided tour costs 13 Euros per person. Further details can be found on Hohenschwangau website.

Tegelberg Cable Car is a 5 minute drive from the parking area for Neuschwanstein Castle. A round trip ticket costs 20.60 Euros.

I stayed at Hotel Kriemhild close to the Hirschgarten in Munich

I flew to Munich direct from Birmingham Airport with Lufthansa

Read further instalments about my tours of King Ludwig II’s fantasy castles and palaces.
Linderhof Palace
Palace of Herrenchiemsee

I also visited the Bavarian palaces in Munich.
Schloss Nymphenburg and the Munich Residenz

Read about my other adventures on my trip to Bavaria and Austria.
Paragliding in the Bavarian Alps
Surreal Night at the Rattlesnake Saloon
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa

I love visiting castles and palaces. Read about other castles I’ve visited around the world.
Kronborg – A Visit to Hamlet’s Castle

As a lover of country music, the Rattlesnake Saloon had been a chance discovery when I was searching the internet to see if there were any country music venues in Munich. It appeared that there was a limited audience in Bavaria for country music and the only place where they had live country music bands was the Rattlesnake Saloon.

One of the strangest things about the Rattlesnake Saloon, other than it was a pub in Germany where they had country music bands, was its location. We had the address and as the saloon wasn’t in the city centre, we decided to drive past in the afternoon to see exactly where it was. It was a residential area and as we were driving down this street full of houses, my thoughts were we were either in the wrong place or the Rattlesnake Saloon had closed down. Neither of these assumptions turned out to be correct. There, in the midst of ordinary houses, was the Rattlesnake Saloon. It wasn’t open at that time of the day, but it didn’t look boarded up. Even so, I wasn’t convinced that it would be open later, despite the fact the website was still live and advertising the Andy Starek Band, a Bavarian country rock band would be playing on Wednesday night.

In the evening we drove to the Rattlesnake Saloon. The Andy Starek Band were on the bill. They were quite something. It was a 4 piece band and Andy was the singer/songwriter who also played the guitar. There was a bassist and drummer and then a keyboard player who looked about 25 years older than everyone else in the band. There was a table of people already there when we arrived and they were either wives of the band members or other musicians that sometimes played with Andy. A bloke turned up on his own and then there was a group of another three blokes and that was it, that was the audience!

Andy asked where everyone was from and when he found out we were English, he said he usually did all his own songs which were in Bavarian dialect, but since we’d come to see him, he would do some cover songs in English. He did his best to translate what the songs were about for us, although sometimes the translation lasted longer than the song did! The first song was called something like “Just go away”. A helpful member of the audience provided a less polite English translation. Then Sylvia who sometimes sings with him got up and we had a bit of Hank. Jambalaya. Sylvia had a really good voice, but she did have this weird thing going on with a pair of braces that were attached to her jeans, but rather than having the braces over her shoulders they were dangling round by her knees. I actually found that really annoying. But I’m not well up on fashion, is this a popular style these days?

Andy did some more of his songs in Bavarian including one about a stalker and a love song for his wife. He decided to translate the second verse into English for us which took longer than singing the entire song! A guitarist called Robert played with him, he was excellent. And then another bloke at the table who had been learning the guitar did a song about trying to achieve a perfect body. I picked some of it up, but my German isn’t good enough to understand it all which was unfortunate, because it was obviously hilarious, the blokes at the next table were in hysterics.

In the second half of the set we then got an accordionist jamming with the band. Robert the guitarist broke into the opening lines of “Please Release Me” and then, as Robert is great at playing AC/DC songs we got “Highway to Hell”, with the accordionist taking part in that number. That was fantastic. And we got a song about the love of Nutella Bread, which is possibly the weirdest subject for a country music song I’ve ever heard! Nothing tastes as good as Nutella Bread. If you say so Andy!

At the end of the set, Andy said it was his birthday next day and he was having champagne at midnight to celebrate and invited the 5 members of the audience to join him in a glass. After we’d all sung Happy Birthday accompanied by the accordion, the accordionist then sang “Living Next Door to Alice” in German, with us all joining in for the obligatory line put into the song by Chubby Brown when the song was a hit for the second time. We sang that line in English! I was a little surprised that “Living Next Door to Alice” was a song that was particularly well known in Germany and especially by a Bavarian accordionist! I actually don’t think surreal begins to describe our night at the Rattlesnake Saloon!

As for the alcohol, well those cocktails were not for the faint hearted. Alan generously offered to drive so we didn’t have to get a taxi, so he drove and I drank. I started with a Lynchburg Lemonade which was Jack Daniels, triple sec, lime and lemon juice. Then I had a Caiparinha, except I was told it was a strong one, not all lime juice. It certainly was strong, you could taste overpowering alcohol on the first sip. I ordered a Mai Tai after that, it was huge and loaded with alcohol. I thought I’d easily manage 3 cocktails, and usually I can, but that’s at an ordinary establishment where there is more fruit juice than alcohol, not at the Rattlesnake Saloon. They were very generous with alcohol and liked to give you your money’s worth. The staff said they hoped we would come back. I would definitely make a point of going there if I came back to Munich.

So with the cocktails and the champagne, I was extremely drunk when I got back to the hotel. The drinks, the music, the venue and the company all made for an amazing and memorable evening. There’s no doubt that our night at the Rattlesnake Saloon will go down in history!

I travelled in Bavaria during the second week of May in 2015.

The Rattlesnake Saloon hosts live music events with a focus on country music and is located in a suburb of Munich

I stayed at Hotel Kriemhild close to the Hirschgarten in Munich

I flew to Munich direct from Birmingham Airport with Lufthansa

Read about my other adventures on my trip to Bavaria and Austria.
Paragliding in the Bavarian Alps
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa

My paragliding day in Bavaria was almost perfect, probably the best day of my holiday. My paragliding adventure took place in the morning.

I was flying from Wallberg at Rottach Egern at around 10am. I did get slightly lost trying to find the paragliding site, I put the name of the mountain in the sat nav and ended up at a ski school! I rang the paragliding pilot, he gave directions to the landing field and from there we were going to the cable car at Wallberg which had amazing views of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps.

There were 2 bags of equipment for the tandem paraglide, that looked like a lot of stuff! I was telling Hagen, my pilot, about tandem hang-gliding in New Zealand and the Canyon Swing in Queenstown and doing a static line parachute jump in England as a student. He said I was obviously an adventurer.

The Wallberg cable car up the mountain is one of those small ones that takes about 4 people, one that you sit down in and much better than the bigger ones where you all stand up and cram inside.  I actually didn’t think we would get in there with the equipment as well, but we managed. It took about half an hour to get to the top of the mountain and I loved the cable car journey up there.  We walked to the second take off site which was higher up because of the winds and the view up there was amazing.  There were great views of the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany and from this mountain we could see into the Austrian Alps and see the highest mountain in Austria too, the Grossglockner.  We had climbed very high up on the cable car, the fact that it took half an hour to get up there meant we were high up.  Hagen asked me if I was nervous. I admitted I was slightly nervous. Hagen said he wasn’t nervous. Since he was the instructor, I took this as a good sign! But I soon forgot my nerves as I got kitted out in my flying suit.

As for the paperwork, there wasn’t any!  It’s the first time I’ve ever done an activity like this and not had to sign my life away.  Hagen said a lot of people went paragliding in Turkey without thinking about safety and the fact that a lot of Turkish paragliding instructors don’t have good safety measures in place.  He said that wasn’t the case with him, all of the instructors in Germany had to have liability insurance.  I told Hagen I backed out of a tandem hang-glide in Brazil when the pilot forged a passport number for me because I didn’t know it and my passport was in the hotel safe, insisted on me paying cash, was vague about how much he wanted me to pay and when I said I didn’t have much cash on me, I was expecting to pay by credit card, he said he would take me to a cash machine after my flight.  At that point I changed my mind.  Too many warning bells!  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t done a tandem hang-glide before, I’d done it with John the World Champion in New Zealand and with John I’d even done some aerobatics on the way down, we were doing barrel rolls, which I didn’t even realise you could do with a hang-glider, so I didn’t feel it necessary to risk life and limb with some Brazilian scoundrel who could drive me into a favela and leave me for dead!

Now I was a bit surprised that Hagen, my paragliding pilot in Germany, was an older bloke, but I was reassured that with age, no doubt, comes experience and he would be a good person to fly with.  And he was, he really looked after me and made me feel relaxed.  Once I was kitted out, he explained to me how we were going to take-off, he said it wasn’t quite the same as hang-gliding. He said with hang-gliding you have to run as fast as you can and not stop, just keep running off the edge of the mountain.  But as a paraglider has a chute and isn’t on a fixed frame like a hang-glider, first we had to take 3 big steps to get the chute in the air. He explained as the chute billowed up it would try to pull me back so I had to keep leaning forward, it was important that I didn’t fall over and then run and just keep running, even if I thought we had taken off.  I’m more than capable of running as fast as I can off the edge of a mountain so that part wasn’t a problem.  Hagen got me to take steps forward and then he pulled me back to simulate the sensation of the chute to prepare me.  He set up the paraglider and called me down the hill, much further down than I expected to take off.

In fact, probably the most nerve racking moment for me was making my way down the fairly steep slope to where Hagen was.  He hooked me up and then the wind dropped completely so we had to wait a minute for the wind to build up a bit.

When it did build up again, he said take 3 big steps, I managed to stay upright although it was difficult and then he shouted run, run, run!  And I kept running as fast as I could and although I was never built for speed, the speed I managed was good enough. And that was it, we were up and away, he said “good girl”, the people watching said “wow”! And that was it, we were flying.

It was much better than the appalling attempts at take-off I’d seen at Tegelberg the day before, it took some of them 3 attempts to get in the air! I was told that the wind conditions there were usually quite challenging and it was a difficult location to take off from. Hagen had a camera on a stick to take photos and a video.  He took photos first and then video of the second half of the flight.

We were bumping around a bit in the air after take-off because even though it was a glorious, warm, clear, sunny day, we were in a westerly wind, Hagen said that made it bumpy, but we weren’t in any danger.  But I wasn’t worried.  I trusted he knew was he was doing and a few bumps didn’t bother me.  We managed to catch some thermals and climbed higher than we’d been when we took off.  It is the best way of seeing the mountains and the view of the lake below was amazing. He kept asking me if I was okay, I was fine, I was enjoying it.  We were flying round for about half an hour before we started our descent. Hagen let me do some steering, when we were comfortably flying around in the thermals he handed me the strings to control our flight, so I had a go at soaring around to get my own views of the Bavarian Alps. However, after about half an hour the wind was starting to get stronger and it was beginning to get a bit more dangerous to be paragliding up there.

Finally, before we came in to land, not be outdone by World Champion hang-glider, John who had done the aerobatics for me on the way down, Hagen wanted to give me a thrilling descent with a paraglider. You can’t turn the paraglider upside down like the hang-glider. So instead we did some extreme corkscrew turns, which basically meant we were spinning round really fast as we descended.  It took my breath away it was so fast, it was like being on a rollercoaster.  It was fantastic, I loved it.

When we landed Hagen told me I was a crazy girl and it had been great flying with me.  He said two thirds of his passengers would have been terrified in the bumpy conditions and they certainly wouldn’t have gone for the extreme corkscrew spinning on descent. But I wasn’t going to say no to any offers of extra thrills that could be thrown in on a flying adventure like this, that’s just not the kind of girl I am!

I travelled in Bavaria during the second week of May in 2015.

I went paragliding with the brilliant Paraworth Tandem Paragliding off Wallberg in the Bavarian Alps near Rottach Egern

I stayed at Hotel Kriemhild close to the Hirschgarten in Munich about an hour’s drive from Wallberg

I flew to Munich direct from Birmingham Airport with Lufthansa

Read about my other adventures on my trip to Bavaria and Austria.
Surreal Night at the Rattlesnake Saloon
Längenfeld Aqua Dome Spa